Many machines have reading mechanisms of the type intended to receive an operating card or other machine-operating substrate (e.g., paper currency) for actuating the operation of a machine, and/or for receiving a substrate including data to be scanned, such as a check. In many reading mechanisms internal surfaces are spaced apart a distance greater than the permissible thickness of the operating card or other operating substrate or a substrate to be scanned, to thereby keep the operating card and/or substrate out of contact with those internal surfaces, particularly internal surfaces of sensing and reading mechanisms, e.g., surfaces of magnetic sensors, optical lenses and other surfaces disposed in the internal cavity of the reading mechanism. Moreover, in many of these reading mechanisms, internal rails are provided to actually support the operating card or other substrate in a position out of contact with the sensing mechanisms. In addition, in many of these reading mechanisms, a feeding system including driven rolls and idler rolls is provided adjacent the entrance, for feeding the operating card and/or substrates into the reading mechanisms in a controlled manner. In some feeding systems employed in reading mechanisms, particularly reading mechanisms intended to receive paper currency for actuating the operation of a machine, a driven conveyor belt cooperates with idler rolls to provide a feed nip for engaging the machine-operating substrate (e.g., paper currency) and directing the substrate into the reading mechanism for actuating the operation of a machine (e.g., a vending machine, a toll-receiving machine, etc.).
Cleaning cards for use in attempting to clean the above-identified reading mechanisms are well known in the art, and are generally employed to traverse the same path in the reading mechanism that is traversed by the operating card and/or other operating substrate to be scanned. The most common commercially available cleaning cards are substantially flat substrates that are intended to closely approximate the dimensions of the machine-operating substrate so that they can be received in the reading mechanism for the purposes of cleaning internal surfaces thereof. However, if the maximum thickness of a cleaning card that can be accepted in a reading device of a machine is less than the spacing of the internal surfaces to be cleaned, then the cleaning card will not effectively engage those surfaces to provide its desired cleaning function. This is particularly troublesome in reading devices wherein the machine-operating substrate and cleaning card are inserted through a slot into an enclosed reading mechanism and actually are pulled into and retained within the enclosed mechanism during the operation and cleaning of the reading device, respectively. In these reading devices, the cleaning card cannot be manually pressed against either of the opposed internal surfaces within the slot, since the user of the card actually relinquishes control over its position when it is pulled into the enclosed mechanism.
Cleaning cards having raised surfaces for cleaning or removing foreign objects from internal machine surfaces are known in the prior art, as exemplified by the disclosures in U.S. Pat. No. 6,243,908 (Battle, et al.), U.S. Pat. No. 6,107,221 (Nakajima, et al.) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,153,964 (Gelardi, et al.). A discussion of these latter three patents is included in co-pending application Ser. No. 10/857,382, which is assigned to the same assignee as the instant application, and is hereby fully incorporated herein by reference. Accordingly, the discussion of these latter three patents is not repeated herein, for purposes of brevity.
Application Ser. No. 10/857,382 discloses and claims an improved, very versatile solution to the problem of cleaning internal surfaces of machine components, such as machine-reading mechanisms, and in particular internal surfaces of sensing mechanisms that are spaced further apart from each other more than the maximum thickness of a substrate that can be received within the mechanism. Moreover, the cleaning card disclosed and claimed in the '382 application can be employed in virtually all environments in which conventional, prior art cleaning cards have been employed in the past, even in reading devices wherein the prior art cleaning cards actually are capable of engaging internal surfaces of a sensing mechanism to provide effective cleaning of those surfaces.
However, a potential problem was recognized in connection with attempting to clean reading mechanisms with the cleaning cards disclosed in the above-identified '382 pending application, when the path of travel of the machine-operating substrate in the reading mechanism is not in a single, substantially linear plane. For example, in certain scanning devices, such as check scanning devices, a check is directed into an inlet opening and then is conveyed through a curved, substantially U-shaped bend to an outlet opening. As the check is being conveyed through the curved path, it is read, or scanned by a reading mechanism. Also, in some reading mechanisms for receiving and identifying paper currency to actuate or operate a machine, e.g., a product dispensing machine, a toll-receiving machine, etc., the paper currency is directed into the reading mechanism in a first linear plane, and then the forward, or leading, end of the currency is caused to bend downwardly into a second plane to feed the currency into a collection bin.
It was discovered that the raised surfaces in the cleaning cards of the type described and claimed in co-pending application Ser. No. 10/857,382 tended to flatten out and, in some instances, not engage internal surfaces requiring cleaning when the cleaning cards either were caused to move through a curved, non-linear path, and/or when the forward, or leading, end of a cleaning card was bent to follow the same general path as the paper currency employed to operate a machine, as described above. In both of these latter systems, the movement of a cleaning card out of a single, substantially linear plane tends to apply a machine-direction tension to the card, resulting in at least a partial flattening of the raised cleaning surfaces in locations where they are required to be elevated to clean internal surfaces of the reading mechanism.
In co-pending application Ser. No. 10/957,830, titled Cleaning Cards and assigned to the same assignee as the instant application, a cleaning card is disclosed that employs novel relief means (e.g., slits, slots and/or cuts) in the cleaning card substrate for preventing the peaks of at least some of the discrete raised areas in the cleaning card from flattening toward the central plane to an extent that such peaks will not effectively engage and clean desired internal surfaces to be cleaned when the cleaning card moves in other than a single, substantially linearly plane in the machine-reading mechanism. The '830 application also discloses the provision of closely spaced embossments adjacent each end of a cleaning card to provide traction surfaces for reliable engagement by driven feed rolls of the mechanism intended to receive the cleaning card, and also to be employed to clean the driven feed rolls by manually constraining the cleaning card so that the driven feed rolls are permitted to rotate relative to and engagement with the small embossment adjacent either of the ends of the cleaning cards. The subject matter of co-pending application Ser. No. 10/957,830 is hereby fully incorporated herein by reference.
Some internal actuating mechanisms include a feed system including idler rolls cooperating with a driven belt adjacent the entrance for engaging an operating card or operating substrate and directing that card or substrate into the internal actuating mechanism to provide its desired machine-actuating function. Prior art cleaning cards have not been entirely effective in cleaning idler rolls in these feeding systems.